Dean Potter was an elite rock climber and high-altitude slackliner who died in 2015 in a wingsuit BASE leap in Yosemite Valley. A docuseries on Potter’s profession referred to as “The Dark Wizard” is premiering on HBO.
Filmmakers Nick Rosen and Peter Mortimer had been gathering analysis on the late Yosemite climbing legend Dean Potter once they uncovered a revelation in regards to the man that defines their new HBO docuseries, “The Dark Wizard.”
For most of twenty years — from the mid-Nineties till he died throughout a wingsuit BASE leaping crash in 2015 in Yosemite Valley — Potter was a larger-than-life determine on this planet of outside journey sports activities. He accomplished beforehand unthinkable big-wall solo-climbs, graced the covers of shiny magazines and earned a coveted sponsorship from attire firm Patagonia — all whereas exhibiting a countercultural perspective befitting his renegade mountaineering predecessors.
Having filmed his climbing exploits for years, Rosen and Mortimer had been aware about Potter’s excessive competitiveness, temper swings and uncooked emotional outbursts. But it wasn’t till just a few years in the past, as soon as they’d interviewed Potter’s closest surviving buddies and browse his private journals, that it clicked: one of many best trendy climbers might have been propelled partially by his private struggles with psychological sickness.
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The filmmakers deliberately keep away from diagnosing Potter, however buddies interviewed for the movie series describe a person topic to bouts of mania and despair.
“Not only was it something that was holding him back in life and hurting his relationships and hurting him, but it was also driving a lot of his creative and competitive energy,” Rosen instructed the Chronicle.
Dean Potter within the HBO docuseries “The Dark Wizard.”
That’s when the filmmakers knew they needed to inform a narrative about Potter that ran deeper than simply his accomplishments and accolades. The result’s an engrossing 4-part series that provides an unsparing examination of one in every of climbing’s most enigmatic and influential figures. The first episode of “The Dark Wizard” airs Tuesday night time on HBO.
“He had this influence on adventure climbing and how far you can push it on these big walls, and he inspired a generation of top climbers,” Rosen stated.
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Potter grew up within the Northeast and fell into the dirtbag climbing life-style within the Nineties as a younger man, finally discovering inspiration, like so many others, within the big granite partitions of Yosemite Valley. What began as a soulful exploration for Potter morphed right into a aggressive pursuit as soon as he grew to become a sponsored athlete with a fame to take care of.
The series depicts Potter at peak efficiency whereas feeding on excessive stress — threatened by a rival climber or suffering from points in his private life. Conflict would convey out a darkish and aggressive facet of Potter that typically fueled his jaw-dropping bodily feats.
“For Dean, the mania could become a source of creative power,” Brad Lynch, one in every of Potter’s shut buddies, stated throughout an interview for the series.
Dean Potter was an elite rock climber and high-altitude slackliner who died in 2015 in a wingsuit BASE leap in Yosemite Valley. A docuseries on his profession premieres Tuesday on HBO.
Part of his coping concerned in search of ever-riskier pursuits — big-wall free-soloing, wingsuit BASE leaping and untethered high-altitude slacklining — that pushed him to the sting of his talents.
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“I started to realize, his only therapy was the death consequence,” Lynch stated.
In crafting “The Dark Wizard,” Rosen and Mortimer, who collectively have directed dozens of “Reel Rock” climbing movies in addition to the award-winning 2021 documentary “The Alpinist,” drew from 30 to 50 hours of archival footage of Potter. They wove that with recent interviews with climbers, filmmakers and Potter’s surviving sister, Elizabeth Potter, who supplied the climber’s journals and is credited as an govt producer on the series.
“I think, for us, this is the biggest, most exciting thing we’ve done, for sure,” Mortimer stated.
A notable look within the series is Alex Honnold, the well-known Yosemite climber identified for his ropeless ascent of El Capitan and the ensuing Oscar-winning documentary, “Free Solo.”
Dean Potter is the topic of “The Dark Wizard.”
Growing up within the Sacramento space, Honnold watched Potter’s early feats enjoying on VHS loops in his native climbing gymnasium and acknowledges Potter as an inspirational determine. Eventually, Honnold himself ventured to Yosemite to comply with in Potter’s footsteps, performing audacious climbs whereas residing out of a van.
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In constructing his personal fame, Honnold “obliterates” lots of Potter’s notable climbing data, San Francisco author Dan Duane stated in an interview for the series. “There’s almost a cruelty to it,” he stated of Honnold’s ruthless and systematic method.
With his measured demeanor and goal-oriented course of, Honnold features as a foil to Potter and his hazardous seek for which means within the mountains. But the movie attracts a thread via the 2 climbers and their respective journeys to excellence.
Honnold carried out his unimaginable El Cap free solo two years after Potter’s demise. In the series, Honnold says if there’s one one who might have actually appreciated the historic feat, it could have been Potter.
“I think it would have been amazing to talk to Dean about free soloing El Cap,” Honnold stated. “More than almost anybody else on Earth, he could appreciate what went into it. I mean, Dean was the first person to think about it seriously, and he showed the rest of us what’s possible.
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“The climbing world is just not the same without the Dark Wizard.”
